Population: Young Adults

Young People in Foster Care

MDRC evaluates programs that provide counseling and support to young people who are "aging out" of foster care to help them make the transition to independent adulthood.

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Issue Focus

Pivoting and Planning: STRIVE’s Pandemic Progress

When COVID-19 upended normal operations at STRIVE, a workforce development nonprofit founded in New York, the Center for Applied Behavioral Science at MDRC documented the agency’s real-time innovations that allowed it to continue serving clients during the crisis. Greg Wise, STRIVE’s National Vice President, shared a first-hand account of the transition.

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Report

Connecting to Opportunity

Young people who experience homelessness or involvement in foster care or justice systems face unique challenges. The Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)TM initiative aims to help this population reach its full potential. An MDRC evaluation of two programs adapted by 10 LEAP grantees will contribute knowledge to this field.

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Full
Key Documents
Report

Building a Learning Agenda Around Disconnected Youth

Built on a research review and consultation with youth policy experts, this paper makes the case for developing a menu of approaches for the heterogeneous population of disconnected youth, building knowledge about mature programs (to better understand whether they work, for whom, and why), and creating new programs that address areas of unmet need. This framework may be particularly relevant for the Administration’s newly proposed Youth Innovation Fund.

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Brief

After Foster Care and Juvenile Justice

A Preview of the Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation

This brief covers one of the largest and most rigorous evaluations of services for youth who are aging out of the foster care and juvenile justice systems. It explains the scope of the problem, summarizes the policy context, describes the program and study sample, and offers preliminary observations from the evaluation.

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Report

Striving for Independence

Two-Year Impact Findings from the Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation

This study tested a program that offers individualized services to young people who are making the transition from foster care or juvenile justice custody to independent living. The program had modest, positive effects on earnings, housing stability, and economic well-being and improved some health and safety outcomes.

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